Finland has moved to change its laws on sexual assault and automatically classify sex with a child and sex without consent as rape.

The new legislation would increase the maximum sentence for statutory rape - sexual activity with a minor - and introduce new punishments for forced rape of a child.

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It would also enshrine the need for consent ahead of sexual intercourse in law, following neighbouring Sweden where this was introduced last year.

The proposed changes came about amid anger at Finland's response to sexual assaults, after a court ruled that an adult who had sex with a ten-year-old was not guilty of rape, and recent outrage at a string of migrant men arrested over alleged sexual abuse of girls.

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Finnish police told AFP they received 1,400 reports of sexual offences against children in 2018.

In around 25 percent of these cases, the suspect was of a foreign background - considerably higher than the proportion of foreign-born people in the population at large, which is around seven percent.

Lawmakers - Measures - Criminals - Citizenship - Offenders

Finnish lawmakers also agreed to urgently introduce tougher measures against foreign-born criminals, such as revoking citizenship from convicted sexual offenders with a foreign background.

Police in the capital Helsinki said on Saturday they had detained three men of foreign background on suspicion of multiple counts of aggravated child sexual assault and child rape.

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Two of the men were later released, while police indicated they expect to formally charge the third man this week.

In recent weeks a series of similar arrests have been made in Oulu,...